December 2002

Student Associateship of the RAI. The announcement in October's AT of the new package for postgraduate students (repeated in this issue) has attracted great interest, and students are already signing up as Associates for 2003. Those joining now may start to use the Anthropology Library Reading Room immediately, on presentation of their letter of confirmation from Blackwell's. The Reading Room is normally open between 10.00 am and 4.45 pm Monday to Friday except Bank Holidays. The telephone number is (020) 7323 8031. Student Associates may use the Reading Room on site but not, as yet, borrow books; we hope to introduce borrowing rights for Student Associates in the near future. At present, only Fellows and Junior Fellows may borrow books.

Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology. We are pleased to announce that the 2001 Prize has been awarded jointly to Mahir S¸aul and Patrick Royer for their book West African challenge to Empire: Culture and history in the Volta-Bani Anticolonial War, published by James Currey Books and Ohio University Press.

Lucy Mair Medal for Applied Anthropology. The RAI invites nominations for the 2003 Lucy Mair Medal for Applied Anthropology. The Medal is intended to honour excellence in the application of anthropology to the relief of poverty and distress, and to the active recognition of human dignity. Individuals should not apply on their own behalf, but any Fellow or Member of the Institute is invited to send a nomination for consideration by the Medal Committee, which will make a recommendation to the RAI Council. The Committee is also empowered to search actively for a candidate for the Medal; and may recommend that the medal not be awarded in any year. The Medal may be awarded at any stage in a person's career, but is intended to recognise sustained and effective work. While it is not intended to recognize contributions to anthropological theory as such, anthropologists who have made a contribution to theory as well as to applied anthropology are not thereby excluded from consideration. The Medal Committee may consider not only a nominee's publications, but also such work as practical advice to governments and voluntary organisations. Nominees may be of any nationality or residence. Nominations should be sent to the Director at the RAI address by 31 March 2003. They should be rigorously argued and accompanied by appropriate supporting documentation.

Anthropological Index Online. The Economic and Social Research Council, which provided a grant towards the costs of retrospective digitization of the Anthropological Index Online, completed in 2001, has given the project a rating of 'Outstanding: high quality research making an important contribution to the development of the subject'. Our congratulations to all involved in the retroconversion project.

RAI Presidential Address. The Institute would like to make the Presidential Addresses given by serving RAI Presidents during the Annual General Meeting more widely available to Fellows. The text of Professor Wendy James's 2002 Address 'The anthropological family: From ancestors to affines' is being sent to all Fellows as an insert with this issue of AT. We hope to repeat this procedure whenever practicable in the future.

Staff. Therese Kearns joined us as Office Manager on 1 October, succeeding Jean Fairweather. Janice Archer took up the post of Library Officer on 1 November, succeeding Beverley Emery. Beverley continues to work in a voluntary capacity with the RAI's Archive and MS collections.

Christmas-New Year closure. The RAI office will close on Friday 20 December and re-open on Monday 6 January 2003. The Anthropology Library at Burlington Gardens will be closed on 24, 25 and 26 December and 1 January. We wish all AT readers a good holiday and a happy and successful New Year.

October 2002

The Huxley Memorial Lecture and presentation of the Huxley Medal to Dr Jane Goodall will take place at 6.00 pm on Wednesday 4 December 2002, in the Lecture Theatre of the University Museum, Parks Road, Oxford. Dr Goodall's title is 'The scientific study of primates and its impact on contemporary world-views'. Admission to the lecture and following reception by ticket or at the door; free to RAI Fellows and Members; £2 admission charge to others. Those joining the RAI as Student Associates for 2003 (see announcement in this issue of AT) will also be admitted without charge. For ticketing arrangements please contact the RAI by phone or email to the , or see the RAI website at www.therai.org.uk.

In association with the Department of Ethnography, British Museum, the Henry Myers Lecture will be given at 6.00 pm on Wednesday 13 November 2002 in the Clore Education Centre, British Museum, Great Russell St, London WC1B 3DG. The lecturer is Professor Marcel Detienne of Johns Hopkins University, and the title will be 'The gods of politics in early Greek cities'. Admission free to all without ticket; refreshments afterwards.

Subscriptions for 2003. The RAI Council has determined that the individual subscriptions for 2003 will be held unchanged from 2002, as follows:

Fellows: UK £70, overseas £61
Junior Fellows: £35
Retired Fellows: UK £55, Overseas £49
Joint Fellows co-resident: UK £105, Overseas £92
Life Fellows: £1400
Members: £20

New service for Fellows in 2003. We are pleased to announce that, by agreement with Blackwell Publishing, RAI Fellows will have access to the RAI publications held on the JSTOR ('Journal Storage') electronic archive at no additional cost to the Fellow or the Institute. JSTOR holds in digital form all issues over 5 years old of the JRAI (including Man), AT from 1985 and its predecessor RAIN from 1974-1984, and the former Proceedings of the RAI. Details of how to access the archive will be published as soon as possible.

New service for postgraduate students in 2003. We are pleased to announce, in association with the Association of Social Anthropologists, the launch in 2003 of Student Associateship of the RAI and Associate Membership of the ASA. This is a new way of joining the RAI, with a package of benefits designed for students and an option for social anthropology students to join the ASA at a special rate; it is available to postgraduate students. For details see the announcement in this issue, and RAI Voice distributed with this issue of AT.

Leach-RAI Fellowships 2003-2006: correction. A production gremlin in the August issue of AT caused the loss of critical parts of the text of the Esperanza Trustees' announcement and call for offers. See this issue for corrected announcement and postponed deadline for institutional offers. Our apologies to readers and to the Trustees.

Staff news. We will be sorry to lose Jean Fairweather, our Office Coordinator, who leaves the RAI in October. Therese Kearns will join us as Office Manager at the beginning of the month.

August 2002

The Annual General Meeting was held on 26 June at Apothecaries Hall, Blackfriars, by kind permission of the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries. The President, Professor Wendy James, presented the Patron's Medal for outstanding services to anthropology and the Institute to Beverley Emery, retiring Library Officer. The announcement was made of the award of the Rivers Memorial Medal to Professor Maurice Bloch. Dr Sushila Zeitlyn was elected to the RAI Council.

Following the AGM, Professor James delivered her Presidential Address entitled 'The anthropological camily: From ancestors to affines'. A vote of thanks was proposed by the Hon. Secretary, Dr Eric Hirsch.

A reception and book exhibition after the AGM marked the UK launch of The best of ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, edited by Jonathan Benthall and published by Routledge. The RAI thanks Routledge, Berghahn, James Currey and Blackwells for exhibiting books and contributing to the success of the event.

Honours and elections. Professor Gananath Obeyesekere of Princeton University has been elected as Huxley Memorial Medallist and Lecturer for 2003. Dr Ruth Mace of University College London has been elected as Curl Lecturer for 2003. Details of the two Lectures will be published in AT when available.

Leach-RAI Fellowships. The Trustees of the Esperanza trust for Anthropological Research, which part-funds the Fellowships, has issued a call for offers to host the next phase of the programme (see announcement in this issue).

Special Lectures. The Huxley Memorial Lecture and presentation of the Huxley Medal to Dr Jane Goodall will take place at 6.00 pm on Wednesday 4 December 2002, in the Lecture Theatre of the University Museum, Oxford. Dr Goodall's title is 'The scientific study of primates and its impact on contemporary world-views'. Admission to the lecture and following reception by ticket or at the door; free to RAI fellows and members, small admission charge to others. Further details in the October issue of AT and on the RAI website.

The Henry Myers Lecture will be given on Wednesday 13 November 2002 by Professor Marcel Detienne of Johns Hopkins University; title and venue t.b.a.. Admission free to all without tickets.

June 2002

Annual General Meeting, 26 June 2002: CHANGE OF VENUE. RAI Fellows and Members please note: The AGM will not now be held in the Chadwick Room, University College London, as announced in the April 2002 issue of AT. Instead, it will take place at the Apothecaries' Hall, Black Friars Lane, London EC4V 6EJ (nearest Underground station Blackfriars). The change has been made in order to combine the AGM and Presidential Address with the UK launch of the new anthology The best of Anthropology Today, edited by former RAI Director Jonathan Benthall, to be published in June by Routledge. For full details please see the RAI website. For the timetable of the event and agenda of the AGM, see the special insert distributed to all Fellows and Members with this issue of AT.

Afghanistan: The background (a day of ethnographic film): change of date. The date of this event has had to be changed from Wednesday 19 June (as advertised in April AT) to Monday 17 June. For full information see the online RAI Calendar of Events and website. All welcome. No charge for entrance but lunch/refreshments must be paid for.

Special Lectures. The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2002 is Dr Jane Goodall, the celebrated primatologist. The Lecture will be given on Wednesday 4 December 2002; venue and title to be announced. The Myers Lecture for 2002 will be given by Professor Marcel Detienne, Basil D. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics at Johns Hopkins University; date, title and venue to be announced.

The Eighth RAI Festival of Ethnographic Film will be held at Durham University on 4-6 July 2003. See the Call for Submissions in this issue of AT.

Curl Essay Prize. The 2001 Prize has been awarded to Ms Hillary Stevens for her essay 'Space and power in the Soviet forced labour camps'. The judges commented that the winning entry was 'an [unconventional] but brilliant and wonderfully written essay'.

The Patron's Medal, given for outstanding services to anthropology and to the Institute, is this year awarded to Mrs Beverley Emery, who steps down as Library Officer in May 2002 after more than 30 years of distinguished service to the RAI and to the Anthropology Library.

Annual Report for 2001. Copies of the new Annual Report are enclosed with this issue of AT to all current RAI Fellows.

Office closure. The RAI office will be closed from Monday 19 August to Friday 30 August inclusive. The Anthropology Library at 6 Burlington Gardens will be closed from 16-27 September inclusive.

Other Library news: the OPAC catalogue system for Unicorn is now live and functioning in the Reading Room, with a link to the Anthropological Index Online.

Staff news. Susanne Hammacher has joined us as Film Officer. Beverley Emery retires as Library Officer in May 2002 but will continue on a voluntary basis, working on the RAI Manuscript Collection. A recruitment process for a new Library Officer is under way (see advertisement in this issue of AT).

April 2002

February 2002

RAI Prizes. We are pleased to announce that the 2001 J.B. Donne Essay Prize for the Anthropology of Art has been awarded to Dr Sean Kingston (until recently a staff member at the RAI) for an essay entitled Attention to form in a Southern New Ireland life-cycle. The judges comment that this is ‘an exceptionally convincing essay in which ideas of form are given overdue theoretical attention and integrated with pertinent ethnographic data from the author’s own fieldwork. The essay represents a significant advance in thinking about the anthropology of art and well deserves the Donne Prize this year.’

The 2000 Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology has been awarded to Professor J.D.Y. Peel for his book Religious encounter and the making of the Yoruba, published by Indiana University Press. The same author also shared the Herskovits Award for African Studies (made each year by the African Studies Association in the US), jointly with Karin Barber. We expect to publish a report from the judges of the 2000 Competition in April.

Fellowships. The book by Harri Englund, who held the Leach/RAI Fellowship in 1997-98, has been published by Edinburgh University Press. Entitled From war to peace on the Mozambique-Malawi borderland, it appears in the International African Library series of the International African Institute. The book charts the historical trajectories of particular border villages from the colonial period to the post-war era of liberalism. The ‘Manchester method’ is used to address questions of trust, violence and authority in war and displacement, adding ethnographic nuance to the scholarship on transnational crises.

Membership Services Questionnaire. There were 370 responses to the joint questionnaire sent to all Fellows and Members of the RAI and Members of the ASA in autumn 2001. We are in the process of analysing the results and hope to report on these in April. Our thanks to all who participated.

Lucy Mair Medal for Applied Anthropology 2002. The Institute invites nominations for the annual Lucy Mair Medal for Applied Anthropology. The Medal is intended to honour excellence in the application of anthropology to the relief of poverty and distress, and to the active recognition of human dignity. Individuals should not apply on their own behalf, but any Fellow or Member of the Institute is invited to send a nomination for consideration by the Medal Committee, which will make a recommendation to the RAI Council. The medal may be awarded at any stage in a person’s career, but is intended to recognize sustained and effective work. While it is not intended to recognize contributions to anthropological theory as such, anthropologists who have made a contribution to theory as well as to applied anthropology are not thereby excluded from consideration. The Medal Committee may consider not only a nominee’s publications, but also such work as practical advice to governments and voluntary organizations. Nominees may be of any nationality or residence. Nominations should be sent to the Director, RAI, 50 Fitzroy St, London W1T 5BT by 19 March 2002. They should be rigorously argued and accompanied by appropriate supporting documentation.

Staff. Gail Thakur, the RAI’s Film Officer, has resigned following her year’s study leave. Alicia MacLean, our temporary Film Assistant, has been appointed as Temporary Film Officer for the months of January and February 2002. Please see the advertisement for a new Film Officer on page 31 of this issue of AT.